Spirituality and Psychotherapy

The Crossroads of Spirituality & Psychotherapy

There is much dialogue on the intersection of spirituality and psychotherapy. Because of changes in the religious and social landscape, conversations are focusing on the shared features of both disciplines. These include transformation of consciousness, reckoning with structures of meaning-making and power, and wrestling with received images of God.

The Institute is engaging in, and encouraging, these conversations, with community education courses, book discussions, and more – to show how these two important disciplines overlap in addressing the inner life of individuals. In fact, there is much in the emerging literature and research that bears this out. For example, the recent work on neurotheology shows the ways in which brain structure is favorably transformed as a result of such meditative practices as centering prayer. These findings are similar to what psychotherapists and neuropsychoanalysts are discovering about the beneficial changes in brain functioning that result from psychotherapy and psychoanalysis.

In our era there is an increasing trend toward a transdisciplinary approach to the perennial questions that accompany the human journey. As a result of this trend, psychotherapists often find spiritual and religious issues emerging in clinical treatment encounters as clients seek an integrative approach to their struggles. It is essential to address these overlapping issues in order to understand how a client’s religious and spiritual beliefs, practices, and background are featuring in their attempts to transform internal barriers leading to the achievement of a more cohesive and optimal inner life.

A Must Read…

The cross and the lynching tree are separated by nearly 2,000 years. One is the universal symbol of Christian faith; the other is the quintessential symbol of black oppression in America. Though both are symbols of death, one represents a message of hope and salvation, while the other signifies the negation of that message by white supremacy. Despite the obvious similarities between Jesus’ death on a cross and the death of thousands of black men and women strung up to die on a lamppost or tree, relatively few people, apart from black poets, novelists, and other reality-seeing artists, have explored the symbolic connections. –James H. Cone

If you missed our 6-week study of this book with Patrick Cousins, MA, you’ll still want to explore the book on your own. A fascinating exploration, with both a theological and psychodynamic eye, on the ways in which American culture and Christian theology reinforce and dismantle white supremacy, both historically and in contemporary context.

Available in the Institute’s Betty Golde Smith Library.

Articles of interest…

Chronic Illness and Spirituality…

“Our journeys as spiritual people take many turns over the life course, as our search for meaning is ongoing and ever-changing. We know that illness disrupts identity, but we don’t often talk about the specific ways that illness affects spiritual identity.” — From the series “Chronically Me'”from Institute APP Alum and former Schiele Clinic Practicum, Katie Willard Virant, MSW, JD, LCSWClick on photo at right to read.

The shrink and the spiritual director: Freud and the Jesuits

Jesuits have also availed themselves of such therapeutic services, including the most prominent Jesuit alive today, the current bishop of Rome who, in 2017 revealed in an interview that as a priest he had seen a Jewish psychoanalyst in Argentina for six months-the first pope ever to admit to any kind of clinical consultation and therapeutic relationship. That Pope Francis could make such an appreciative admission reflects the latest phase in a winding journey among Jesuits, now dating back a century. Click on photo at right to read.